Title: Hell’s Angel’s
Author: Hunter S. Thompson
Year: 1967
Genre: Crime, True Crime
IMPORTANT: This book does include a lot of discussion around the topics of rape and sexual assault which I have discussed below as part of my review but would like to put this statement here for those who do not wish to read any further.
In this 1967 expose, the father of ‘gonzo journalism’, Hunter S. Thompson writes his expose’ on the Hell’s Angels.
The book was selected by my local bookshop Blue Sheep Books‘, for their True Crime and Crime/Thriller Book Club as a follow-on from the previous selection which was Sonny Barger’s autobiography, one of the most famous members of the Hell’s Angels which you can read my review of here.
Prior to reading this book the only knowledge I had of it was it is mentioned in Sonny’s 2001 book and he seemed to have a very negative opinion of the book.
At the time of writing the book the Hell’s Angels had begun to gain notoriety in America with the huge bikes, overall dirty appearance and the barely contained violence becoming more and more prominent in the media and capturing the public’s attention. Hunter S. Thompson spent a year with the Angels and in this book documents his experiences with the club and members including Charger Charley, Big Frank, Little Jesus and the Gimp, as well as Sonny Barger himself.
Throughout the book, Thompson recalls many events that he was present at, including their drinking, drug-taking, home visits and their sexual encounters, as well as this he also recounts stories that were reported within the media, many of which were exaggerated due to the fear the general public had.
He also recounts runs he went on with the club, including a Labor Day weekend at Bass Lake which involved several close run-ins with local law enforcement and the Angels as they arrived en masse and later tried to buy alcohol over the weekend, as well as their drug taking to try to stay awake throughout the weekend. He also recalls the clean-up operation that the Angels did before leaving Bass Lake at the end of the weekend.
The book also later details the Hell’s Angel’s increasing use of drugs such as LSD and their violent attacks on property and people who they deem to have wronged them. The final chapter and post script details the souring of relations between Hunter and the Hell’s Angel’s, where Hunter made a comment to one of the members who was beating his wife, calling him a “punk” which resulted in him being subjected to a 40 minute beating which was only stopped when one of the members who knew him called a stop to it.
I will start with the positive aspects of the novel, it is interesting to read about the gang from the perspective of someone who was an outsider to the gang which next to Sonny’s book has some interesting contrasts.
There are times in Sonny’s book where his ego and bravado shine through and is somewhat defensive about his actions and his ego does come across, whereas Thompson’s mission in this book seems to be to debunk and deconstruct much of the mythology around the group that had been built up in the media in the 1960’s.
In particular the Hell’s Angels appeared to see themselves as revolutionaries but Thompson seems to argue that they wanted to keep things as they are which in a decade like the 1960’s where things were rapidly changing across all areas of society it is interesting to read about them in that context.
The book does also appear to be well-researched with many statistics and quotations from both sides included which helps to give a wide overview of the subject matter.
However and this is also by Thompson’s own admission the book is not objective as he comments he was “no longer sure whether I was doing research on the Hell’s Angels or being slowly absorbed by them.” This does make you wonder what parts Thompson leaves out of the novel and it was commented on in our book club that parts of the story he seems to focus on very specific details and then glosses over other parts which makes you wonder how involved he actually got with the group.
The next point which has to be bought up is the book does have a lot of mention of rape and sexual assault and has been accused of being rape apologetic. Indeed there is a passage in Chapter 17 where Thompson writes about rape and it is disturbing as he says that some women want to be raped, that many men want to commit rape and some parts of the book discuss rape cases against the Hell’s Angels and states that women in these cases lied. Many of these narratives are seen as outdated and rightly seen as wrong viewpoints to have on the topic.
On one level we did discuss this in the book club the context of this being written in the 1960’s when feminism and sexual politics were much bigger issues, with abortion and contraception laws coming out around this time so it is possible that the Hell’s Angels were part of this conversation and it is stated in Sonny’s book that they did at least ride the wave of bad publicity these cases generated so it is possible that Hunter may have been trying to debunk these stories but the statements to an audience today are horrendous.
Also we discussed in book club the books impact on Hunter’s career as after this book he went on became a huge journalist in America, however at this point he isn’t and we did speculate whether parts of the book are his own pretentiousness at trying to be who he wanted to be. This is an interesting parallel when he is trying to debunk mythology around the Hell’s Angels in much of the book but building up a mythology around himself at the same time as the writer who will go anywhere and meet anyone to get the story.
The result of this is that the book seems to go off on tangents at times as if he is trying to prove a deeper knowledge and understanding or some deep sociology theories around the club which maybe aren’t the most readable parts of the book.
Overall this is an interesting companion read to Sonny’s book, both because it is written by an outsider and also during an interesting time in America and the club’s history but there are parts that will be very jarring and disturbing to modern readers so it is important to go in with preparedness for this.
If you have read this book, let me know in the comments below what your thoughts are.
